Component-based software as a framework for concurrent design of programs and platforms - an industrial kitchen appliance embedded system

Designs of hardware, mechanics and software for a new mechatronic system ar e to be performed concurrently in order to have a new product in the market in the shortest possible time. Traditionally, major hardware blocks need t o be designed and built first. They represent a platform for software writi ng and testing. A software design concept that enables a parallel design of hardware, mechanics and software is presented. The concept implies creatio n of a framework for a component-based software design first. Then, a compo nent-based design is performed. At software design time, software component s yield embedded system functionality, and they also model hardware and mec hanics functionality. As hardware and mechanical parts are built, they are integrated with functionality components, already designed, written and ver ified. The critical software design task is splitting the embedded software functionality and hardware model into self-contained, self-sufficient comp onents, easy to manage simple interfaces. The concept is demonstrated by a case of designing software for a potato fryer. Software components are desi gned to be transportable to other industrial kitchen appliances (bain-marie , tilting pan, range) via parameter adjustments only. In the case study of a potato fryer, 90% of microcontroller code was implemented and verified as software components in a C++ Builder environment running on a personal com puter at the same time as hardware and fryer mechanical parts were built. 1 0% of code was written and final parameter adjustments were performed on a simple microcontroller development system. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. A ll rights reserved.